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Re-Framing the Desktop Interface Around the Activities of Knowledge Work

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Re-Framing the Desktop Interface Around the Activities of Knowledge Work Re-framing the Desktop Interface Around the Activities of Knowledge Work Stephen Voida Elizabeth D. Mynatt, W. Keith Edwards Department of Computer Science GVU Center, College of Computing University of Calgary Georgia Institute of Technology Calgary, AB, Canada T2N 1N4 Atlanta, GA, USA 33032-0760 [email protected] {mynatt, keith}@cc.gatech.edu ABSTRACT Our prototype system, Giornata, demonstrates how the The venerable desktop metaphor is beginning to show signs traditional desktop metaphor can be re-framed to retain the of strain in supporting modern knowledge work. In this spirit of simplified interaction with applications and files paper, we examine how the desktop metaphor can be re- and yet better support contemporary knowledge workers’ framed, shifting the focus away from a low-level (and practices by emphasizing activity as the primary organizing increasingly obsolete) focus on documents and applications principle in the interface. Giornata’s enhanced desktop to an interface based upon the creation of and interaction serves not only as a display space for application windows, with manually declared, semantically meaningful activities. but also serves as an active folder for documents and other We begin by unpacking some of the foundational information items associated with the current activity assumptions of desktop interface design, describe an (Figure 1). Giornata utilizes lightweight activity- and activity-based model for organizing the desktop interface document-tagging capabilities that enable informal and based on theories of cognition and observations of real- evolutionary resource organization. Finally, Giornata world practice, and identify a series of high-level system integrates collaboration tools directly into the desktop to requirements for interfaces that use activity as their primary support group information sharing and activity awareness. organizing principle. Based on these requirements, we In this paper, we make the following contributions: present the novel interface design of the Giornata system, a • We describe an alternative model for organizing the prototype activity-based desktop interface, and share initial desktop interface—activity-based computing—and findings from a longitudinal deployment of the Giornata identify a series of high-level system requirements for system in a real-world setting. interfaces that use activity as their primary organizing ACM Classification: H5.2 [Information interfaces and principle. presentation]: User Interfaces—Graphical user interfaces. • We present the novel interface design and implementation of the Giornata system, a prototype General terms: Design, Human Factors activity-based desktop interface. Keywords: Activity-based computing, desktop computing, • We discuss the technical issues involved in realizing context-aware computing, knowledge work, Giornata Giornata and suggest ways that further research might INTRODUCTION foster the development of future activity-based systems. The venerable desktop metaphor is beginning to show signs • We share some initial findings from a longitudinal of strain in supporting modern knowledge work. In this deployment of Giornata in a real-world setting. paper, we examine how the desktop metaphor can be re- To provide an overview of the design rationale and framed, shifting the focus away from a low-level (and implementation of the Giornata system, we first discuss increasingly obsolete) focus on documents and applications specific requirements for the design of Giornata based on to an interface based upon the creation of and interaction the state of existing desktop interfaces, empirical studies of with manually declared, semantically meaningful activities. knowledge workers’ actual practices, and theories of We discuss how this class of activity-based desktop cognition grounded in the construct of activities. We then interfaces can provide a unified model for organizing work provide a scenario that depicts a holistic illustration of the around activities, foster fluid multitasking, simplify system’s support for knowledge work, and conclude with resource organization, and incorporate collaboration specific details about the interaction design and architecture capabilities into everyday tools. of the prototype implementation. THE DESKTOP INTERFACE The desktop metaphor was developed over 30 years ago at © ACM, 2009. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. Xerox PARC. The interaction techniques comprising the desktop interface responded to the needs of knowledge The definitive version was published in Proceedings of the ACM workers and the capabilities of computer technology in that Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST ’08), era. These multi-window environments helped foster the UIST’08, Monterey, California, October 19–22, pp. 211–220. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1449715.1449751 multitasking practices that are now so central to modern knowledge work. The presence of a desktop “surface” Figure 1. The Giornata interface. In this screenshot, an individual is engaged in managing a particular clientʼs business account. There are several tags (including the clientʼs name, “Acme”), two open windows, six files (three of them shared), three colleagues, and one group associated with this activity. During typical use, the Contact Palette automatically slides off-screen and application windows cover other Giornata interface elements until they are needed. behind application windows also provided spatially Different models for information storage have also begun oriented, persistent storage for icons representing files, to disrupt the original model derived from information application shortcuts, disk drives, and, eventually, the management on the physical desktop, which maps computer, itself. individual documents to individual files in the filesystem As computers have grown more powerful and expectations and each of these documents to a single window. Piles [19] about their capabilities have evolved, the desktop and the and BumpTop [1] investigated grouping behaviors similar personal computing environment that it serves to ground to those provided for windows via virtual desktops, but did have also evolved to enable new kinds of interactions. so at the level of managing iconic representations of These changes can be broadly classified as new ways to documents and applications where they are stored. Some manage space on the screen, new ways to manage stored information types—most prominently, e-mail, but also information, and new tools to connect to other individuals. media files such as music and photos—are often not managed through the traditional desktop interface but are One of the first major extensions to the desktop metaphor instead managed in separate information “silos” [5], stored was the development of virtual desktops, exemplified in the separately from “traditional” documents and accessible Rooms system [12]. Rooms was based on a study of only through a dedicated application, such as an e-mail knowledge workers’ task management practices and client or a music “jukebox” application. The migration to acknowledged that individuals tend to focus their more web-based storage and manipulation of documents is interactions within semantically meaningful clusters of extending this distance between the desktop metaphor and windows. This model was subsequently incorporated into individual documents; it is not uncommon to have a the majority of X-windows window management tools. window be the only representation of a document available Other approaches to screen space management included locally, with the file itself stored in a web-based repository. space-filling tiled window techniques [14], grouping application windows (“pages”) into manually-defined Finally, the desktop metaphor was designed primarily for groups (“binders”) that behave as a single window [4], supporting a single individual; the intervening years have grouping windows using existing window management seen a dramatic increase in reliance upon collaboration- tools like the Windows Taskbar [26], and even projecting focused tools like e-mail and IM and much more pervasive the window environment into the third dimension [23]. use of remote servers to store all kinds of content. Most Other space-related extensions include the incorporation of desktop interfaces provide relatively impoverished information awareness “widgets” alongside regular representations of these connected and collaborative application windows (e.g., Apple’s Dashboard and resources. Attempts to create desktop-like collaboration Microsoft’s SideShow [6]). interfaces (e.g., [25]) have demonstrated the potential in integrating collaborative functionality into systems at a deeper level. However, despite their focus on desktop-like organizational, communicative, and collaborative artifacts. collaboration support, these tools are typically realized as This theory suggests that activity-based tools need to allow stand-alone applications and do not integrate into existing for flexible specification and modification of activities, and desktop interfaces or more diverse work practices. that activity representations should persist after the activities themselves are completed, so they can be used as AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE TRADITIONAL DESKTOP communicative tokens and templates for future activities. METAPHOR: ACTIVITY-BASED COMPUTING Rather than attempting to displace the existing desktop These two theories
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